Why are (some) people so against WFH?

[thistimenextyearwellbemillionaires]

I see so many threads on here about why people shouldn't be able to WFH and I don't really understand why people would be against it

For most people it seems make sense with their home life & financially as saving on commuting costs. When my children were young I was 5 days in the office and had to rush back from town to collect them and it was so stressful, it must be great for people not to have to do that now.

I know some people might take the piss a bit, but this happened when people were in the office full time too, there would always be someone always in late, leaving early etc.

I am lucky that my company is hybrid and no plans to change that. I've been offered another role recently which was a big pay rise but 5 days in the office and have decided to stay where I am. Where I work, whether you're in the office or at home you're expected to produce the same work and results and if you don't you'd be out so they're no slouch in terms of expectations of their employees.

Interested to know people's honest opinions.

As with others I spend most of my office day on teams calls, not collaborating with others in the physically in the office. The company I work for recently downsized the office so it’s now always full, and I can’t hear myself think. So I ended up booking a meeting room for all my calls just so people could hear me. I might as well have been sitting in my office at home for the day.

Preference is obviously individual and if I hadn’t been office based in my early twenties I’d have missed making so many great friendships, after work pub flirting etc. Now in my early 50’s working at home is perfect.

In my experience, objection to it from those who can’t is envy based.

Four things come to mind:

Some people don't have anywhere suitable to work at home - e.g. they're encroaching on family space or in their bedroom

Some people take the piss and don't work properly or effectively

Seeing and working with people in person is difficult to replicate virtually

For some people who live alone, the social aspect of work is important and stops them being isolated

You can still make friends at work with hybrid-workng. (which I think is what the majority of us do)

Funny how everything you don't agree with on MN must be because of jealousy! My DD were both in retail during the first lockdown, one changed jobs working for a big insurance company,to work nearer home. She loved being in the office,made friends, then they decided to get the staff working from home. She had a tiny one bedroom flat, conversion.tiny sitting room, minute kitchen Ended up at her dressing table initially,then on the bed, not bothering to make the bed,then not bothered to get dressed. The room got damp and mouldy. She became depressed,that wasn't something she had ever suffered from, she's not immature or inexperienced, she's in her 50s and once had a team of over 200 under her. She now manages a restaurant. I am certainly not jealous either and I had a long commute, just over a 100 mile round trip. I enjoyed wearing different clothes, driving to work, work and home completely separate.

For 1 and 4 the person can go into the office.

There seems to be a feeling on MN and elsewhere that if you CAN work from home you MUST work from home. There are a few employers who are 100% virtual, some don't even have a small HQ, but for the vast majority of people, if they want to go into the office every day or most days, they can.

People seem to be stuck in the covid world of working in your bedroom.

If you can't happily work from home, either because you don't have the space at home, or you just don't like it, then you don't have to.

Also - if you want to socialise, you can take up hobbies and meet people close to home.

That's fine IF your have good employment opportunities locally. More and more, organisations are closing regional offices and centralising in London and a handful of other big cities. That really restricts employment/career opportunities for people living in the regions. So if that's the case, there isn't a "local" office you can go to. Centralisation and working from home are actually detrimental to a lot of people and are helping to worsen the regions.

Speaking as a non-Londoner, remote work is offsetting some of the negative effects of centralisation. Which occurred well before remote working became common.

When you don't have good employment opportunities locally, remote working gives you better access to the jobs market. More of it would give more of us more options. Centralisation without widespread remote working was the worst of both worlds.

I was replying to a poster who said that you "could" go into the office if you preferred. I was just pointing out that for lots of home workers, they've had that option removed from them, either because their employer has closed down their local offices or because they had to take a remote job because there were no local ones. WFH works for some, but doesn't work for others, and the centralisation/closure of regional offices has been detrimental for workers who would benefit from at least partial working in a workplace.

I know. I saw the trail.

But the issue there is your conflation of remote working and centralisation, and the way you said both are helping to worsen the regions. When actually, remote working alleviates some of the issues that centralisation had already caused.

Possibly because so many times people phone up only to be told X is working from home and cannot talk to you.

It's got a bad reputation in my workplace because loads of parents are using it to avoid paying nursery fees. The impact on others not doing that is really obvious but management is useless and it's created a lot of resentment.

I can't work from home, definitely happy for others to work from home as it might help keep the commuter traffic down.

Husband works from home- IT job and they have found that they get better staff now they can all work from home as they can recruit from the whole of the country. So there is a larger pool of talent. They will do some team days in person here and there. He also is really happy with one of his members of staff as it means she can work flexibly around her child and is probably one of the best members of his team.

If X is WFH in a properly structured organisation their calls should follow them.

It's not rocket science with softphones and IT etc.

Possibly because so many times people phone up only to be told X is working from home and cannot talk to you.

@Deathraystare i don’t understand your point. If you want to speak to someone who is working from home, then you just call them? Working from still means ‘working’! I do exactly the same work, whether I’m in the office or WFH, you can always get hold of me!

Some people are only able to work because there is a WFH option. My DP is in a role that is 100% remote. He is autistic, and can not handle working in an office at all. Apart from a couple of Teams meetings a week, he doesn't even have to talk to anyone on the phone as comms are done via email/chat programs.

Such an important point. More remote working has brought new opportunities to people who were previously denied them. This needs saying, because a lot of people clearly didn't notice all the people who weren't there when the expectation was to work in person.

Your management really needs to sort that out, I can see how that is annoying for parents and non parents but that's 100% on your company to find out what is going on and take it from there.

In all the years I have WFH that has literally never happened and anyway why wouldn't someone be able to use a phone from home?

I work from home, I can still answer the phone. My old company used Teams for all calls, my current one doesn't so I use my mobile (I could get a work mobile but I rarely get calls).

Yes, my DD was still in nursery when the pandemic hit. She has Down’s syndrome and to be perfectly honest at that point I don't think we had anticipated how impossible doing our normal commute would become once she started school, as wrap around care isn't an option for her and her grandmother can't get to ours before the school run. Being able to WFH has literally enabled me to remain in employment in the same job.

A question for WFHers (who work for someone, rather than SE).
I had Internet issues this morning, finally after about an hour managed to get service for just long enough to download the files I needed. I'll have to work later to catch up

How does that work for the qho require constant Internet access?

If my Internet went down I'd go round to my parents or my sister's and work from there. It would be very unlucky that all 3 houses lose Internet access at once and one major outtage (as they're all different areas). Or I'd go to a coffee shop or the library where they have Internet.

Or I'd hot-spot off my phone.

I have two internet options, wired and 4g hub, if both of them fell over I’d just tether to my phone.

It is still totally possible to have internet/IT issues when you're in the office, this doesn't just happen at home!!

It happens from time to time but I can use the my phone's hot spot as a back up.

It's not as if the broadband, mains power or whatever could never go off in the office.